1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to the field of communications. More particularly, this invention relates to special services implemented over a telecommunications network that communicate incoming and/or outgoing messages via an Internet Protocol (IP) addressable communications device during a data connection.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telecommunications has experienced explosive growth, and more growth is planned as telecommunication access and numerous communication devices improve. This explosive growth is revolutionizing special services offered to subscribing customers. Of the special service offerings, the most relevant to this invention are the Internet Call Waiting (ICW) services. A user of a personal computer (PC) or other IP communications devices with an active ICW session is able to receive information about incoming calls from a calling telephone number without interrupting an active data connection between the PC and a data network, such as the World Wide Web, an Internet, an Intranet, and an Extranet. Presently available ICW services provide the calling telephone number, a billing name associated with the calling telephone number (if available), and call handling options. Call handling options typically include disabling the ICW session and data connection to answer the call, putting the call on hold and presenting a message to a calling party that a called party is aware of the call and will answer the incoming call shortly, routing the call to a voice mailbox associated with the called telephone number, ignoring the call, and forwarding the call to another telephone number. These options are presented to the user in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that appears as a pop-up screen with separate command buttons. The user clicks on a desired call handling command button on the screen for the ICW PC software application and the selected option is transmitted to the telecommunications network over the Internet. The telecommunications network then processes the call according to the selected handling option.
Most subscribers of ICW services rely on a single telephone line to make voice calls and to access a data network. When the telephone line is utilized for a data connection (e.g., via modem), an ICW session is often automatically activated by a dialing software, which dials an appropriate prefix code for activating ICW before dialing the telephone number to establish the link with the data network. For example, a user's communications device may dial a telephone number of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) for access to the world wide web including an Internet, Intranet, Extranet, or other data network. Given that there is only one telephone line and ICW has been activated, the user of the connected PC controls how the incoming call is handled. For example, if the user is notified of the incoming call, then the user may choose to not answer the call and maintain an on-line session via the data connection. Consequently, the calling party cannot communicate with the user, such as to provide that user with a short message that the user may use to make an informed decision about how to handle the call. As an example, a parent calling his/her own home telephone number may hear ringing, but no answer, as a consequence of a child's failure to associate the calling telephone number with his/her parent and the child's unwillingness to interrupt or terminate an Internet gaming session and answer the incoming call. As a result, the parent is unable to communicate with his/her child.
Therefore, there is a need for systems and methods that allow a calling party to communicate an incoming message to a communications device at a called number engaged in an ICW session and data connection. Further, there is a need to allow the user of the communications device engaged in the ICW session and data connection to communicate a response message to the calling party, Finally, there is a need to provide several authorization levels for the calling party and/or user to control the messaging capabilities during the ICW session and the data connection.